Conservation of resources and general environmental issues take an increasing place in today's societies. In view thereof governments as well as the waste management industry focus more and more on the separation of waste in multiple fractions and on the recycling of such fractions. Early waste recycling attempts have clearly established that rational and cost effective separation of waste in fractions must be done “at the source”. The separation of “mixed” waste afterwards, from a common receptacle, would be far too expensive and/or technically complex. Therefore, it has been common to provide separate containers for the largest fractions, such as aluminum cans, glass, paper and plastic/paper packages. Such separate fraction containers are becoming more and more frequent, not only at city dumps but also in residential areas, office areas and hospitals.
The above described source separation attempts in residential areas all involve considerable transport problems, both with regard to the users that are required to carry the separated fractions to the containers and with regard to the transportation of the containers for the separate fractions to a community dump, to a recycling plant or other locations. For vacuum operated waste collection systems it has also been suggested to use waste inlets and transport piping for separate collection of bulkier fractions such as newspaper or glass. With the existing technique such waste separation has mainly been implemented by using separate waste chutes or waste inlets associated with separated temporary storage facilities. Such techniques require much additional construction work for separate waste chutes or additional excavation work for separate free-standing waste inlets.
The described drawbacks and inconveniences become even more pronounced for the “smaller” waste fractions that in the household waste environment may include batteries, electronic waste, metal etc. and that in other environments, such as hospitals, may include hazardous and/or toxic waste. Particular problems arise for such waste, not only because the fractions are so comparatively small that it is not economically acceptable to invest in separate inlets for the different fractions, but also because of the sometimes absolute requirement that such fractions must not be mixed in any part of the handling sequence.